Computed·Blg - Innovation&Society

Artifical leaves could charge your phone

nospam@example.com (Christian Babski) — Thu, 10 May 2012 17:45:18 +0000

-----

Green plants use photosynthesis to convert water and sunlight into energy used to help the plant grow. Scientists have created the first practical artificial leaf that mimics the natural process and holds promise for sustainable green energy. The key to this practical artificial leaf is that unlike earlier devices it doesn’t use expensive components in its construction.

The new artificial leaf is made from inexpensive materials and uses low-cost engineering and manufacturing processes making it much more practical. The artificial leaf has an component to collect sunlight sandwich between two films that generate oxygen and hydrogen gas. When the artificial leaf is placed into a jar of water and placed in sunlight, it bubbles, releasing hydrogen that can be used by fuel cells to make electricity. Previous designs needed expensive materials like platinum along with expensive manufacturing processes.

The new artificial leaf replaces the costly platinum with a less expensive nickel-molybdenum-zinc compound. The opposite side of the leaf has a cobalt film that generates oxygen gas. The hope is that this sort of device can be used to generate electricity for remote places that are off the electrical grid. The tech could also be used to power all sorts of devices including phones and more.

“Considering that it is the 6 billion nonlegacy users that are driving the enormous increase in energy demand by midcentury, a research target of delivering solar energy to the poor with discoveries such as the artificial leaf provides global society its most direct path to a sustainable energy future,” he says.

Mona Lisa’s True Identity?

nospam@example.com (Christian Babski) — Wed, 09 May 2012 15:21:17 +0000

Via Christian Babski

-----

Some researchers are about to try to run facial recognition algorythm on Mona Lisa painting in order to try to know who is she... but do we really want to know?

The full article @ the online Daily Mail

Sourcemap: visualizing supply-chains for the goods in our lives

nospam@example.com (Christian Babski) — Mon, 07 May 2012 10:51:11 +0000

Via BoingBoing

-----

Sourcemap shows supply-chain maps that reveal all the places in the world that feed into the common goods we consume in our lives. The service's about page implies that the supply-chain data comes from companies themselves, but there's a lot of what seem to be user-generated maps like this complex map labelled "Laptop Computer". It's a tantalizing set of maps, but I wish there was more information on the data-sources that went into each map.

On the other hand, I'm loving this reconstruction of Western Electric's 1927 telephone manufacturing supply chain by Matthew Hockenberry, who added this information: "This is a reconstruction of the supply chain for the Western Electric produced 'candlestick' style telephones of the late 1920s. Information is largely drawn from archival Western Electric/AT&T materials, as well as those of supplier companies. Some imagery is currently included for cotton and copper sources. This is a rough draft - many details are missing or incomplete."

Sourcemap: where things come from

The state of responsive advertising: the publishers' perspective

nospam@example.com (Christian Babski) — Wed, 02 May 2012 14:43:00 +0000

Via Christian Babski

-----

The Internet is about (if it is not already a terminated task!) to become a pretty classical media. Country's boundaries were raised up on the net, making unavailable some contents depending on the world region you are browsing from (pretty weird, middle-age based concept of what the Internet must be)... We are now heavily targeted by many advertisements all around contents we are trying to access from the Web, pop-up blockers are now totally useless as advertisements took fairly advantage of HTML evolution. It is more and more difficult to ignore these advertisements, and even by closing them, one already produces/gives an information to Big Brother. There is less and less ways to escape, and by reading the following article, it looks like we are not supposed to escape... by the way.

Responsive Advertising article

The opportunity to set up an alternative network (satellite based?) may be the only way to get a new [commercially virgin] web... Let's call it The Veb... underlying the need of a step back from where we are nowadays.

HomeOS: Enabling smarter homes for everyone

nospam@example.com (Christian Babski) — Tue, 01 May 2012 11:31:40 +0000

Via Christian Babski

-----

It looks like that Microsoft is about to propose the access to an operating system design to control your... home. The prototype seems to be accessible freely for non-commercial use.

Here is the abstract and a direct link to the research program's web page:

It is no secret that homes are ever-increasing hotbeds of new technology such as set-top boxes, game consoles, wireless routers, home automation devices, tablets, smart phones, and security cameras. This innovation is breeding heterogeneity and complexity that frustrates even technically-savvy users’ attempts to improve day-to-day life by implementing functionality that uses these devices in combination. For instance, it is impossible for most users to view video captured by their security camera on their smartphone when they are not at home. Heterogeneity across devices and across homes also makes it difficult to develop applications that solve these problems in a way that work across a range of homes.

To simplify the management of technology and to simplify the development of applications in the home, we are developing an "operating system" for the home. HomeOS provides a centralized, holistic control of devices in the home. It provides to users intuitive controls to manage their devices. It provided to developers high-level abstractions to orchestrate the devices in the home. HomeOS is coupled with a HomeStore through which users can easily add obtain applications that are compatible with devices in their homes and obtain any additional devices that are needed to enable desired applications.

HomeOS

Why the iPad Has to be Made in China

nospam@example.com (Christian Babski) — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 14:50:19 +0000

Via ifixit.org

-----

The iPad’s light, sleek, simple construction belies its complex origins. There’s a lot of stuff in the iPad: aluminum and glass, of course, but also other heavy metals and toxic chemicals. And manufacturing each 1.44-pound iPad results in over 285 times its own weight in greenhouse gas emissions. The manufacturing of and material used in the iPad are two reasons why the iPad must be made in China—and not just in the ways you’d expect.

Yes, labor is dirt cheap in China. Minimum wage was just $138/month at Hongkai Electronics in October 2010, compared to $1160/month in the US (based on a $7.25/hour federal minimum wage and a 40-hour work week).

And yes, environmental regulations in China are pretty minimal (though improving). China ranks 116th out of 132 countries on Yale’s 2012 Environmental Performance Index rankings. Even with all their illegally run coltan mines, the Democratic Republic of Congo is ranked many points higher than China.

But there’s another important reason why Apple and other manufacturers have their heels stuck in Chinese mud. iPad manufacturing, like the manufacturing of other electronics, requires a significant amount of rare earth elements, the 17 difficult-to-mine elements used in all kinds of green technology. It’s hard to say exactly what rare earths are in an iPad, since Apple is really tight-lipped about their materials—no one can even get them to confirm what manufacturer makes their impact-resistant glass, though I suspect Asahi.

Cambridge engineering professor Dr. Tim Coombs guesses that there may be lanthanum in the iPad’s lithium-ion polymer battery, as well as “a range of rare earths to produce the different colours” in the display. The magnets along the side of the iPad and in its cover (pictured above) are possibly a neodymium alloy. Electronics glass is often polished with cerium oxide. According to a Congressional Research Service report, worldwide demand for rare earths was 136,100 tons in 2010, 45-percent of which was for magnets, glass, and polishing.

All Our Rare Earths Come from a Pit Mine in China

Why is all this rare earth consumption a problem? China currently controls 95-97% of the world’s supply of rare earths and has repeatedly cut export quotas, sending already-high prices skyrocketing. Fearing dependence on China for rare earths, two companies—Molycorp in California and Lynas Corp in Australia—plan to begin mining rare earths this year. As green industry continues to grow, however, it’s unclear if current mining operations will be able to keep up with increasing demand.

Facing growing concern about the possibility of a rare earth shortage, President Obama recently lodged a complaint with the World Trade Organization against China about their rare earth policy. Some specialists think the complaint may be “too little, too late”—by the time China changes its policy, more manufacturers will have moved plants to China.

Recycling is Not a Rare Earth Solution

It might seem that the mountains of electronic waste would be a perfect source of rare earths. But recycling isn’t the answer to the rare earth shortage—at least not yet. Some Japanese recyclers are successfully recovering rare earths from compressors. But neither SIMS Recycling Solutions nor Electronics Recyclers International (ERI), the two biggest electronics recyclers in the US, are currently recovering any rare earths in their recycling process, according to SIMS president Steve Skurnac and ERI CEO John Shegerian.

For now, Skurnac says, “Rare earths come in very minute concentrations in electronic scrap,” which means that recyclers need high volume and super efficient processes to recover any reasonable amount of rare earths from electronics. The technology just isn’t there to make it economically feasible for most recyclers.

Today, an American electronics company can only be exempt from China’s rare earth export quotas by manufacturing within China. So that’s what most companies, including Apple, are doing. The only other solution is for us to stop consuming so much—an option that people rarely find appealing. Not as appealing as a retina display, at least.

The Failure of One Laptop Per Child

nospam@example.com (Christian Babski) — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 14:42:30 +0000

Via hack education

-----

"25 million laptops later," Mashable announced today, "One Laptop Per Child doesn't increase test scores." "Error Message," reads the headline from The Economist: "A disappointing return from an investment in computing."

The tenor of these stories feels like a grand "Gotcha!" for ed-tech: It's shiny stuff, sure, but it offers no measurable gains in "student achievement." So while the OLPC project might have been a good idea, so the story goes, it is not a good investment.

One Laptop Per Child was a good idea, a noble and ambitious one at that. Originally proposed in 2006, OLPC aimed to build an inexpensive laptop that would be sold to governments in the developing world and made available in turn to the children in those countries via their respective ministries of education. Easier said than done. Over the course of the past 6 years, the OLPC has fussed with hardware and software specs, finally building a laptop (and now, a tablet) that costs $200 (twice that of the originally promised price).

In the meantime, much of the developing world has experienced its own mobile computing revolution. There are now a number of manufacturers working on low-cost devices for that market. There's the Intel Classmates PC, for example (with similar hardware, but more expensive software than its OLPC coursin); there's the Worldreader project (it delivers villages a library full of e-books via Kindles); and there's the now-infamous Aakash tablet (which was sold in India for $35 but with its reliability and functionality very much in question).

Arguably more significant than the competition OLPC faces from these low-cost tablets and netbooks: 95% of the world's population now owns a cellphone, by some estimates (See Wikipedia's list of mobile phone penetration, broken down by country). Of course, a clamshell phone is hardly the same as a laptop. One has SMS; the other, a command line. Nonetheless, the ubiquity of the cellphone makes it clear that the value proposition of the OLPC device needs to be more than just "access" and "connectivity."

The mission of the non-profit organization always stressed something broader, bigger -- One Laptop per Child meant empowerment, engagement, and education:

We aim to provide each child with a rugged, low-cost, low-power, connected laptop. To this end, we have designed hardware, content and software for collaborative, joyful, and self-empowered learning. With access to this type of tool, children are engaged in their own education, and learn, share, and create together. They become connected to each other, to the world and to a brighter future.

No mention of improving standardized test scores in there, you'll notice. No talk of "student achievement." "The best preparation for children," according to the OLPC website isn't test prep. It is "to develop the passion for learning and the ability to learn how to learn."

Standardized test scores in math and in language do not reflect "the ability to learn how to learn" -- they don't even purport to. But we fixate on test scores nevertheless. It is worth noting here that the study that prompted today's headlines about OLPC's "disappointing" test results -- one conducted by the Inter-American Development Bank using data collected from some 300 primary schools in rural Peru -- did find some improvement in students' cognitive skills (as in, "the ability to learn how to learn").

The study links that boost in cognitive skills to "increased interaction with technology." Make of that what you will. The study also found that having access to computers increases your access to computers. To quote Keanu Reeves here, "Whoa."

The study points out other things too, and it asks "Could stricter adherence to the OLPC principles have brought about better academic outcomes?" Many students were not allowed to take their laptops home. Internet access was "practically non-existent." Just 70% of teachers had 40-hours of professional development before their students were given the devices.

That last (missing) piece -- training for teachers -- has long been something that gets overlooked when it comes to ed-tech initiatives no matter the location, Peru or the U.S. It is almost as if we believe we can simply parachute technology in to a classroom and expect everyone to just pick it up, understand it, use it, hack it, and prosper.

Oh right. OLPC has done just that, a la The Gods Must Be Crazy, whereby tablets were quite literally dropped into villages from helicopters. Okay, not everyone receives their devices this way, but OLPC has always been fairly hands-off in its training implementation efforts. It's one of the major criticisms that the organization has faced (along with criticisms about price, hardware, software, and environmental sustainability).

For his part, Nicholas Negroponte, the head of the OLPC foundation, frequently points to the work of Sugata Mitra and the "Hole in the Wall Project" as inspiration -- the belief that children can learn (and teach each other) on their own. Children are naturally inquisitive; they are ingenious. Access to an Internet-enabled computing device is sufficient. They will "figure it out."

It's part of what Mitra and Negroponte call a "minimally invasive education." Considering the colonial legacy of education systems in the developing world, avoiding "invasion" seems profoundly important.

But there remains a strange tension between dropping in a Western technological "solution" and insisting doing so is "non-invasive." At it's best, the OLPC represents a desire to support literacy, connectivity and learning through technology. But it does those things in a world of ubiquitous cellphones, which on their own have not transformed education either. In an effort to be "non-invasive" then, OLPC ends up often being unsupportive -- unsupportive of the tech, the teachers and the learners.

But is that failure? It doesn't feel like pointing to standardized test scores in math and language is the right measure at all to gauge this. It goes against the core of the OLPC mission. But then again, these measurements are political, not necessarily pedagogical. And these scores reveal less about the global reach or potential of technology, and more about the dominant narratives of the U.S. education system: "what counts" as learning, and "what counts" in terms of ed-tech's role in delivering or enabling it -- why, standardized test scores, of course.

Photo credits: OLPC

World War 3.0 - The battle over Internet governance

nospam@example.com (Christian Babski) — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 13:42:00 +0000

Via Vanity Fair

---

When the Internet was created, decades ago, one thing was inevitable: the war today over how (or whether) to control it, and who should have that power. Battle lines have been drawn between repressive regimes and Western democracies, corporations and customers, hackers and law enforcement. Looking toward a year-end negotiation in Dubai, where 193 nations will gather to revise a U.N. treaty concerning the Internet, Michael Joseph Gross lays out the stakes in a conflict that could split the virtual world as we know it.

Access to the full article @Vanity Fair

MIT Project Aims to Deliver Printable, Mass-Market Robots

nospam@example.com (Christian Babski) — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 10:22:31 +0000

Via Wired

-----

Insect printable robot. Photo: Jason Dorfman, CSAIL/MIT

Printers can make mugs, chocolate and even blood vessels. Now, MIT scientists want to add robo-assistants to the list of printable goodies.

Today, MIT announced a new project, “An Expedition in Computing Printable Programmable Machines,” that aims to give everyone a chance to have his or her own robot.

Need help peering into that unreasonably hard-to-reach cabinet, or wiping down your grimy 15th-story windows? Walk on over to robo-Kinko’s to print, and within 24 hours you could have a fully programmed working origami bot doing your dirty work.

“No system exists today that will take, as specification, your functional needs and will produce a machine capable of fulfilling that need,” MIT robotics engineer and project manager Daniela Rus said.

Unfortunately, the very earliest you’d be able to get your hands on an almost-instant robot might be 2017. The MIT scientists, along with collaborators at Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania, received a $10 million grant from the National Science Foundation for the 5-year project. Right now, it’s at very early stages of development.

So far, the team has prototyped two mechanical helpers: an insect-like robot and a gripper. The 6-legged tick-like printable robot could be used to check your basement for gas leaks or to play with your cat, Rus says. And the gripper claw, which picks up objects, might be helpful in manufacturing, or for people with disabilities, she says.

Printable gripper. Photo: Jason Dorfman, CSAIL/MIT

The two prototypes cost about $100 and took about 70 minutes to build. The real cost to customers will depend on the robot’s specifications, its capabilities and the types of parts that are required for it to work.

The researchers want to create a one-size-fits-most platform to circumvent the high costs and special hardware and software often associated with robots. If their project works out, you could go to a local robo-printer, pick a design from a catalog and customize a robot according to your needs. Perhaps down the line you could even order-in your designer bot through an app.

Their approach to machine building could “democratize access to robots,” Rus said. She envisions producing devices that could detect toxic chemicals, aid science education in schools, and help around the house.

Although bringing robots to the masses sounds like a great idea (a sniffing bot to find lost socks would come in handy), there are still several potential roadblocks to consider — for example, how users, especially novice ones, will interact with the printable robots.

“Maybe this novice user will issue a command that will break the device, and we would like to develop programming environments that have the capability of catching these bad commands,” Rus said.

As it stands now, a robot would come pre-programmed to perform a set of tasks, but if a user wanted more advanced actions, he or she could build up those actions using the bot’s basic capabilities. That advanced set of commands could be programmed in a computer and beamed wirelessly to the robot. And as voice parsing systems get better, Rus thinks you might be able to simply tell your robot to do your bidding.

Durability is another issue. Would these robots be single-use only? If so, trekking to robo-Kinko’s every time you needed a bot to look behind the fridge might get old. These are all considerations the scientists will be grappling with in the lab. They’ll have at least five years to tease out some solutions.

In the meantime, it’s worth noting that other other groups are also building robots using printers. German engineers printed a white robotic spider last year. The arachnoid carried a camera and equipment to assess chemical spills.

And at Drexel University, paleontologist Kenneth Lacovara and mechanical engineer James Tangorra are trying to create a robotic dinosaur from dino-bone replicas. The 3-D-printed bones are scaled versions of laser-scanned fossils. By the end of 2012, Lacovara and Tangorra hope to have a fully mobile robotic dinosaur, which they want to use to study how dinosaurs, like large sauropods, moved.

Lancovara thinks the MIT project is an exciting and promising one: “If it’s a plug-and-play system, then it’s feasible,” he said. But “obviously, it [also] depends on the complexity of the robot.” He’s seen complex machines with working gears printed in one piece, he says.

Right now, the MIT researchers are developing an API that would facilitate custom robot design and writing algorithms for the assembly process and operations.

If their project works out, we could all have a bot to call our own in a few years. Who said print was dead?

8 bits wide world

nospam@example.com (Christian Babski) — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 14:54:20 +0000

Via Christian Babski

-----

8 bits edition of Google maps. We are all stars now in the game show.

Suddenly Microsoft is the Hippest Tech Company Around

nospam@example.com (Christian Babski) — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 09:28:00 +0000

Via The Atlantic Wire

-----

flickr/Jeff Dlouhy

While Apple and Google are busy getting bad press for their privacy issues, labor practices and general big-evil-company wrongdoings, Microsoft has done some brand regeneration, making it look like the hippest tech company on the block these days. As Apple and Google captured a younger, cooler demographic, the Windows maker, with its stodgy business oriented PC-compatible operating system and notoriously annoying browser, became synonymous with lameness. Remember all those highly effective Mac versus PC commercials? That PC dork (writer-performer John Hodgman) represented all things Microsoft: Slow, uptight, badly dressed. But as Apple and Google have grown up, they've lost their hip sheen. And, Microsoft's taking advantage. In this era of awesomely bad, it doesn't look so lame anymore -- especially in comparison to the other guys.

We noticed this new-found hipness when we came across the endearing Browser You Love(d) to Hate campaign. With some admirable self-awareness, Microsoft used its own bad reputation to argue that its hated Internet Explorer browser is on the verge of a comeback. Layering on the hipster-irony, Microsoft compares itself to once-passe things like PBR and mustaches, suggesting it's just another brand that's so bad, it's cool again. It also doesn't hurt that the overall look of the site matches that aesthetic. The Atlantic's own mustachio-ed tech man, Alexis Madrigal gave it his approval, calling this accompanying ad "definitely the funniest commercial Microsoft's ever put out." We agreed, finding the whole thing convincing enough to give our abandoned IE9 a try again. (We still prefer Chrome, by the way.)

But this image comeback isn't limited to IE. Over the last few days we've seen Hotmail ads running on Boing Boing and Jezebel, two blogs that are hip for different reasons. Boing Boing catering to the hippest of Internet lovers and Jezebel reaches a more mainstream but still cool millennial audience. And in general, the overall Microsoft-related press has been kind of good. Windows 8 surprised and excited the tech blogger world, something a Windows browser hasn't done since Windows 95. The company has some other exciting things going on inside its labs. The other day, It did some Internet good with its Digital Crimes Unit. And, has even designed itself a decent looking logo. Apple's (maybe) new logo, on the other hand, with its rainbow mish-mash, feels dated.

Which brings us to the other aspect of Microsoft's renaissance: good timing. The once-hipper than Microsoft foes, Google and Apple haven't looked so good these days. Google, the once beloved search company, has users uneasy with its Google+ integration, privacy issues and anti-trust concerns. Even Googlers aren't too sure of Google's mission, these days. Appl still produces insane-popular gadgets, but no longer wows reviewers like it once did. The new iPad is still the best tablet out there, but it's not a must-have. Plus, it too has gotten itself into its own privacy messes. It also had the misfortune of acting as the face of the last few months of Foxconn scandal. Though the Foxconn protesters that threatened mass suicide back in January made Microsoft's XBox, thanks to Mike Daisey and Apple's financial successes, Apple not Microsoft absorbed most of the bad PR.

Part of this has to do with maturity, we suppose. An early bloomer, Microsoft's already went through its tech company growing pains. It used to be the evil one, remember? The one accused of monopolistic practices, of buying up the competition, of stifling innovation. But it's no longer the bully. Google and Apple's misdeeds have overshadowed the once dominant tech company, and while the other big players make public messes out of themselves, Microsoft looks to be cleaning up its image. And, we have to say, it looks good.

Fake ID holders beware: facial recognition service Face.com can now detect your age

nospam@example.com (Christian Babski) — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 15:33:43 +0000

Via VB

-----

Facial-recognition platform Face.com could foil the plans of all those under-age kids looking to score some booze. Fake IDs might not fool anyone for much longer, because Face.com claims its new application programming interface (API) can be used to detect a person’s age by scanning a photo.

With its facial recognition system, Face.com has built two Facebook apps that can scan photos and tag them for you. The company also offers an API for developers to use its facial recognition technology in the apps they build.

Its latest update to the API can scan a photo and supposedly determine a person’s minimum age, maximum age, and estimated age. It might not be spot-on accurate, but it could get close enough to determine your age group.

“Instead of trying to define what makes a person young or old, we provide our algorithms with a ton of data and the system can reverse engineer what makes someone young or old,” Face.com chief executive Gil Hirsch told VentureBeat in an interview. ”We use the general structure of a face to determine age. As humans, our features are either heighten or soften depending on the age. Kids have round, soft faces and as we age, we have elongated faces.”

The algorithms also take wrinkles, facial smoothness, and other telling age signs into account to place each scanned face into a general age group. The accuracy, Hirsch told me, is determined by how old a person looks, not necessarily how old they actually are. The API also provides a confidence level on how well it could determine the age, based on image quality and how the person looks in photo, i.e. if they are turned to one side or are making a strange face.

“Adults are much harder to figure out [their age], especially celebrities. On average, humans are much better at detecting ages than machines,” said Hirsch.

The hope is to build the technology into apps that restrict or tailor content based on age. For example the API could be built into a Netflix app, scan a child’s face when they open the app, determine they’re too young to watch The Hangover, and block it. Or — and this is where the tech could get futuristic and creepy — a display with a camera could scan someone’s face when they walk into a store and deliver ads based on their age.

In addition to the age-detection feature, Face.com says it has updated its API with 30 percent better facial recognition accuracy and new recognition algorithms. The updates were announced Thursday and the API is available for any developer to use.

One developer has already used the API to build app called Age Meter, which is available in the Apple App Store. On its iTunes page, the entertainment-purposes-only app shows pictures of Justin Bieber and Barack Obama with approximate ages above their photos.

Other companies in this space include Cognitec, with its FaceVACS software development kit, and Bayometric, which offers FaceIt Face Recognition. Google has also developed facial-recognition technology for Android 4.0 and Apple applied for a facial recognition patent last year.

The technology behind scanning someone’s picture, or even their face, to figure out their age still needs to be developed for complete accuracy. But, the day when bouncers and liquor store cashiers can use an app to scan a fake ID’s holder’s face, determine that they are younger than the legal drinking age, and refuse to sell them wine coolers may not be too far off.

World’s First Flying File-Sharing Drones in Action

nospam@example.com (Christian Babski) — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 18:29:58 +0000

Via TorrentFreak

-----

A few days ago The Pirate Bay announced that in future parts of its site could be hosted on GPS controlled drones. To many this may have sounded like a joke, but in fact these pirate drones already exist. Project “Electronic Countermeasures” has built a swarm of five fully operational drones which prove that an “aerial Napster” or an “airborne Pirate Bay” is not as futuristic as it sounds.

In an ever-continuing effort to thwart censorship, The Pirate Bay plans to turn flying drones into mobile hosting locations.

“Everyone knows WHAT TPB is. Now they’re going to have to think about WHERE TPB is,” The Pirate Bay team told TorrentFreak last Sunday, announcing their drone project.

Liam Young, co-founder of Tomorrow’s Thoughts Today, was amazed to read the announcement, not so much because of the technology, because his group has already built a swarm of file-sharing drones.

“I thought hold on, we are already doing that,” Young told TorrentFreak.

Their starting point for project “Electronic Countermeasures” was to create something akin to an ‘aerial Napster’ or ‘airborne Pirate Bay’, but it became much more than that.

“Part nomadic infrastructure and part robotic swarm, we have rebuilt and programmed the drones to broadcast their own local Wi-Fi network as a form of aerial Napster. They swarm into formation, broadcasting their pirate network, and then disperse, escaping detection, only to reform elsewhere,” says the group describing their creation.

File-Sharing Drone in Action (photo by Claus Langer)

In short the system allows the public to share data with the help of flying drones. Much like the Pirate Box, but one that flies autonomously over the city.

“The public can upload files, photos and share data with one another as the drones float above the significant public spaces of the city. The swarm becomes a pirate broadcast network, a mobile infrastructure that passers-by can interact with,” the creators explain.

One major difference compared to more traditional file-sharing hubs is that it requires a hefty investment. Each of the drones costs 1500 euros to build. Not a big surprise, considering the hardware that’s needed to keep these pirate hubs in the air.

“Each one is powered by 2x 2200mAh LiPo batteries. The lift is provided by 4x Roxxy Brushless Motors that run off a GPS flight control board. Also on deck are altitude sensors and gyros that keep the flight stable. They all talk to a master control system through XBee wireless modules,” Young told TorrentFreak.

“These all sit on a 10mm x 10mm aluminum frame and are wrapped in a vacuum formed aerodynamic cowling. The network is broadcast using various different hardware setups ranging from Linux gumstick modules, wireless routers and USB sticks for file storage.”

For Young and his crew this is just the beginning. With proper financial support they hope to build more drones and increase the range they can cover.

“We are planning on scaling up the system by increasing broadcast range and building more drones for the flock. We are also building in other systems like autonomous battery change bases. We are looking for funding and backers to assist us in scaling up the system,” he told us.

Those who see the drones in action (video below) will notice that they’re not just practical. The creative and artistic background of the group shines through, with the choreography performed by the drones perhaps even more stunning than the sharing component.

“When the audience interacts with the drones they glow with vibrant colors, they break formation, they are called over and their flight pattern becomes more dramatic and expressive,” the group explains.

Besides the artistic value, the drones can also have other use cases than being a “pirate hub.” For example, they can serve as peer-to-peer communications support for protesters and activists in regions where Internet access is censored.

Either way, whether it’s Hollywood or a dictator, there will always be groups that have a reason to shoot the machines down. But let’s be honest, who would dare to destroy such a beautiful piece of art?

Electronic Countermeasures @ GLOW Festival NL 2011 from liam young on Vimeo.

Mess With MIT's Enormous Homemade 1970s Synthesizer

nospam@example.com (Christian Babski) — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 17:48:50 +0000

Via The Atlantic

-----

Joe Paradiso, an associate professor at MIT's Media Lab and director of the Responsive Environments group, started building this analog music synthesizer in 1973. Now, it streams music live from the MIT Museum, and users can manipulate it remotely via the web. With ten people at a time fiddling with the machine's knobs and switches (literally -- the web interface controls the synth's motorized parts), the music often sounds a little like a chorus of baby UFOs getting rowdy. The chaos of collective control is pure fun -- dial down the tempo to turn the bleeps and echoes to syrup, only to see someone dial it way up to frenetic levels again. Someone hits the "slapback drum machine" button just as you hit "growl + gliding & rumbling," and texture builds on texture. Visit http://synth.media.mit.edu/patchwerk/ and enter a username to get in line to participate.

This video was produced by Lucy Lindsey and Melanie Gonick at MIT. Lindsey describes the decades-long project in an article for the MIT New Office:

It was a time, [Paradiso] says, when information and parts for do-it-yourself projects were scarce, and digital synthesizer production was on the rise. But, he decided to tackle the project — without any formal training ... Paradiso gathered information from manufacturers’ data sheets and hobbyist magazines he found in public libraries. He taught himself basic electronics, scrounged for parts from surplus stores and spent a decade and a half building modules and hacking consumer keyboards to create the synth, which he completed in the 1980s.

The Patchwerk interface

For more information about the Paradiso Synthesizer, visit http://web.media.mit.edu/~joep/synth.html.

USB stick can sequence DNA in seconds

nospam@example.com (Christian Babski) — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 09:36:00 +0000

Via NewScientist

-----

(Image: Oxford Nanopore Technologies)

It may look like an ordinary USB memory stick, but a little gadget that can sequence DNA while plugged into your laptop could have far-reaching effects on medicine and genetic research.

The UK firm Oxford Nanopore built the device, called MinION, and claims it can sequence simple genomes – like those of some viruses and bacteria – in a matter of seconds. More complex genomes would take longer, but MinION could also be useful for obtaining quick results in sequencing DNA from cells in a biopsy to look for cancer, for example, or to determine the genetic identity of bone fragments at an archaeological dig.

The company demonstrated today at the Advances in Genome Biology and Technology (AGBT) conference in Marco Island, Florida, that MinION has sequenced a simple virus called Phi X, which contains 5000 genetic base pairs.

Proof of principle

This is merely a proof of principle – "Phi X was the first DNA genome to be sequenced ever," says Nick Loman, a bioinformatician at the Pallen research group at the University of Birmingham, UK, and author of the blog Pathogens: Genes and Genomes. But it shows for the first time that this technology works, he says. "If you can sequence this genome you should be able to sequence larger genomes."

Oxford Nanopore is also building a larger device, GridION, for lab use. Both GridION and MinION operate using the same technology: DNA is added to a solution containing enzymes that bind to the end of each strand. When a current is applied across the solution these enzymes and DNA are drawn to hundreds of wells in a membrane at the bottom of the solution, each just 10 micrometres in diameter.

Within each well is a modified version of the protein alpha hemolysin (AHL), which has a hollow tube just 10 nanometres wide at its core. As the DNA is drawn to the pore the enzyme attaches itself to the AHL and begins to unzip the DNA, threading one strand of the double helix through the pore. The unique electrical characteristics of each base disrupt the current flowing through each pore, enough to determine which of the four bases is passing through it. Each disruption is read by the device, like a tickertape reader.

Long strands, and simple

This approach has two key advantages over other sequencing techniques: first, the DNA does not need to be amplified - a time-consuming process that replicates the DNA in a sample to make it abundant enough to make a reliable measurement.

Second, the devices can sequence DNA strands as long as 10,000 bases continuously, whereas most other techniques require the DNA to be sheared into smaller fragments of at most a few hundred bases. This means that once they have been read they have to be painstakingly reassembled by software like pieces of a jigsaw. "We just read the entire thing in one go," as with Phi X, says Clive Brown, Oxford Nanopore's chief technology officer.

But Oxford Nanopore will face stiff competition. Jonathan Rothberg, a scientist and entrepreneur who founded rival firm 454 Life Sciences, also announced at the AGBT conference that his start-up company, Ion Torrent, will be launching a desktop sequencing machine. Dubbed the Ion Proton, it identifies bases by using transistors to detect hydrogen ions as they are given off during the polymerisation of DNA.

This device will be capable of sequencing a human genome in 2 hours for around $1000, Rothberg claims. Nanopores are an "elegant" technology, he says, but Ion Torrent already has a foot in the door. "As we saw last summer with the E. coli outbreak in Germany, people are already now using it," he says.

Pocketful of DNA

By contrast, the MinION would take about 6 hours to complete a human genome, Brown claims, though the company plans to market the device for use in shorter sequencing tasks like identifying pathogens, or screening for genetic mutations that can increase risk of certain diseases. Each unit is expected to cost $900 when it goes on sale later this year.

"The biggest strength of nanopore sequencing is that it generates very long reads, which has been a limitation for most other technologies," says Loman. If the costs, quality, ease of use and throughput can be brought in line with other instruments, it will be a "killer technology" for sequencing, he says.

As for clinical applications, David Rasko at the Institute for Genome Sciences at the University of Maryland in Baltimore, says the MinION could have huge benefits. "It may have serious implications for public health and it could really change the way we do medicine," he says. "You can see every physician walking around the hospital with a pocketful of these things." And it will likely increase the number of scientists generating sequencing data by making the technology cheaper and more accessible, he says.